Stricken cruise ship leaving Oakland
Grand Princess will anchor in bay with crew, 6 passengers left aboard
The coronavirus-stricken Grand Princess cruise ship, which circled at sea off the coast of California for days before docking at the Port of Oakland, was finally set to sail Sunday evening — to a spot in San Francisco Bay.
The troubled ship will anchor in the bay for two weeks, with 75 medical workers brought on board to care for the 340 crew members and six foreign passengers during their 14-day quarantine, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday.
Newsom did not specify where in San Francisco Bay the ship would anchor, but its expected departure from the Oakland port will end a nearly weeklong mission to offload more than 2,500 people, 21 of whom tested positive for COVID-19. The area where passengers disembarked will be sanitized.
“It’s good riddance to me,” said former passenger Gene Qin of San Francisco, who along with his wife is quarantined in a San Carlos motel. “I’m suffering, and even though the ship is leaving, we are taking the consequences with no choice.”
About 3,533 passengers and crew left Pier 27 in San Francisco on Feb. 21, headed to Hawaii for a 15-day pleasure cruise. Trouble arrived when passengers from the Grand Princess’ earlier Mexican Riviera trip began showing symptoms of COVID-19, including a 71-year-old Placer County man who later died as a result of the virus.
Sixty-two passengers plus crew members had stayed aboard for the Hawaii trip, raising concerns of greater exposure on the Grand Princess. On land, federal and state officials scrambled to figure out how to test ship passengers and where to send the ship, as the virus spread in Bay Area counties.
In a dramatic scene, National Guard helicopters dropped off virus test kits to the Grand Princess as it circled off the coast. Tests taken to a lab in Richmond found that 21 people, 19 of them crew members, tested positive.
On March 8, the day after the cruise was
supposed to dock in San Francisco, Mayor Libby Schaaf, Newsom and federal officials said it would go to an unused and isolated part of the Port of Oakland’s Outer Harbor. They estimated the ship would stay for 72 hours.
Passengers cheered as they passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, past Alcatraz Island and the new span of the Bay Bridge. Arriving Monday morning, passengers began describing jail-like conditions and ever-changing information — or no information — from authorities.
Among the first to disembark Monday were those who had tested positive; they were taken to Bay Area hospitals. By Monday evening, the first plane, a Boeing 747 full of Canadian passengers, left Oakland International Airport’s North Field.
Kathleen Sterling of Oregon believed her 81-yearold father, who suffers from heart failure and asthma and had been ill, would be among the first off the ship. When he wasn’t, Sterling later hung a sign off her balcony that listed her father’s ailments and read, “get him off the ship” and called 911.
“Nobody would talk to me. I don’t even know if
“The people on the ship now, I feel like they’re on a doomed ship. What is to become of them? I just really wish wellness to everyone on board and hope they are not in an absolutely hellish situation.”
— Jacqueline Baker, a former Grand Princess passenger
there was a doctor on the ship on Monday. They just changed the plan. It’s no wonder it took so long for people to get off that ship, it was so disorganized,” said Sterling, who left the ship with her father and family Tuesday and is now quarantined at Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield.
Throughout the week, passengers displaying mild symptoms were sent to hotels in Northern California, and many more passengers were put on flights to federal quarantine sites, including Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego and U.S. military sites in Georgia and Texas. Others were taken by bus to Travis.
The last flight was scheduled to depart at 6 p.m.
Sunday, Newsom said.
Jacqueline Baker, a Los Gatos travel agent and Grand Princess passenger, was worried about those stuck on the boat. The six foreign passengers, according to Newsom, remained because the U.S. government had difficulty coordinating with their home countries.
“You become particularly close to your room steward, the waiter at dinner. The bartenders know some of my fellow passengers by name,” said Baker, 56, who is quarantined at Travis Air Force Base. “The people on the ship now, I feel like they’re on a doomed ship. What is to become of them? I just really wish wellness to everyone on board and hope they are not in an absolutely hellish situation.”
Oakland Mayor Schaaf expressed gratitude “to every worker at the state, federal and local level who kept Oaklanders safe as we conducted a humanitarian mission to reunite thousands of stranded passengers and crew with their loved ones.”
Oakland Councilman Larry Reid said, “I speak for a lot of folks — they are happy to see the ship out in the water and away from land.”